


You Look So Different Without Your Glasses!

by queengabby



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friendship, Glasses, Growing Up, Hawke literally wearing glasses, Humor, Introspection, Romance, Vignettes, that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queengabby/pseuds/queengabby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke as four eyes. No, really. Brief episodes stitched together, detailing the life of a bespectacled Champion. Varric helps.<br/>Let's ignore the fact that glasses don't really happen in the medieval period, just humor me. </p><p>Chronological order, some featuring Fenris/Female Hawke, spans from Hawke's experiences starting at 6 yrs to 29 yrs old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Look So Different Without Your Glasses!

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do something based on personal experience, while relating it to Hawke...here's the result.  
> Enjoy!

Hawke is six when a boy first makes her cry. She runs into the family home in Lothering, tearfully telling her father of the farmer’s youngest who teased her for her crooked eye. Malcolm dries her tears, looking into her bright eyes with a gentle smile. The next morning, he takes her to the doctor. She is given a patch to wear on her left eye, as the doctor explains how it may help the right eye grow stronger. The same day, Hawke returns from playing outside in the late afternoon. She proudly declares, while comically covered in mud, that she won a fight at the lake after striking lightning into the water. Her father’s expression turns to dread, not only realizing that his daughter displayed magic; but that she now believed she was a deadly pirate.

* * *

 Hawke gets her first pair of glasses when she is eight. Her father had managed to scrape enough coin together, amidst the expenses of raising twins. The frames are a simple and delicate silver, smelted by a dwarven friend that her father had done business with in the past. Her mother somehow dotes more than before, making sure Hawke was as tender with her new glasses as she was with her younger siblings. In the evening, she folds the glasses up gently, and tucks them under her blanket next to her head.

* * *

 When Hawke is fifteen, she loses her glasses. They are the first pair she had not outgrown, the frames made of a sturdy oak with small carvings along the temples. She is desperate to find them, searching every crack and crease around the house. Bethany helps her as best as she can, mostly through soft reassurances that they would be found eventually. After being without her glasses for hours, her weaker eye begins to relax and the following headache is enough to bring her to tears. She does not give up.

Both of them are knee deep in hay, dirtied, with sweat on their skin, before Carver comes over with an apologetic look, holding her glasses in his hand, admitting to have hidden them away, presumably in retaliation for his mabari imprinting on Hawke. She grabs them, and only takes a brief moment to put them on her face before shoving him with enough force that he staggers backward. He sees her expression, and it is the first time he does fight back.

* * *

 Hawke is seventeen when she gets in her first fistfight. It is with the blacksmith’s son, who had been seen ogling the eldest of Malcolm’s children sometime ago. She flirts back, of course, because she is Hawke and her childish wings have not yet been clipped, nor burdened with responsibility. She kisses the boy because she is curious and confident that it will change nothing of who she is, least of all her heart. She draws back, and he tells her how she would look good without her glasses on. Her youth would later be used as an excuse for the outburst, but in truth, it is often the most docile birds that end up having the sharpest talons.

* * *

 Hawke is nineteen when her father dies. Heaviness lies like a curtain over their home. She sleeps in her father’s favorite chair by the window, her elbow resting on his stack of novels collecting by the arm of the furniture. When she goes to stand, she feels her heel kick something further underneath the chair. She retrieves the box, heavy with recognizable dwarven design, and when she opens it she is met with a pair of thick frames, made of a rich redwood. The eyeglass winks up at her, and she laughs, a soft and fond thing, her vision blurring behind her unshed grievances.  

* * *

 Hawke is twenty-two when one of the eyeglasses crack. She had been fighting the ogre that killed her sister. Leandra collapses atop her youngest daughter, openly weeping at the new loss. However, Hawke does not shed tears, because the hurt is too new. When the fracture of her eyeglass splits the image of her mother from her sister’s body, she forces herself to look away.

* * *

When Hawke turns twenty-three, she meets Varric. He gives back Hawke’s stolen coin that he had swiped off a pickpocket, and then he notices her broken glasses. The dwarf gives a short laugh, asking how she can see with the eyeglass in such poor condition. She agrees to join his expedition, and he promises to repair the broken pair within a few days. Hawke is not sure if he means her glasses, or her siblinghood with Carver, currently in decrepitude.

* * *

Hawke is nearly twenty-six when she begins teaching Fenris how to read. It is awkward at first, both of them tentative in their conversations. Hawke is unsure of how to mend the aches in her heart, but she knows why he left and she –

She rebuilds what she can, carefully making her nest anew, not hesitating to allow him under her wing again. Months pass, and soon, Hawke does not notice when she leans closer to help him with pronunciation. Neither does Fenris, she thinks. But when Hawke pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and glances over to find him watching, the heat of her cheeks threatens to burn them both.

* * *

At twenty-six, Hawke dances with death. The Arishok’s body bows after their performance, conceding her victory with his demise. But Hawke peels her hand away from her stomach to see bright red, and she does not know if it is a triumph to die. Thankfully, Anders does not allow her the time to find out. Her glasses are broken, and she is too exhausted to focus her vision, concentrating on the healing magic spreading in her chest, the death grip that Fenris holds on her hand, and the hard press of Aveline’s armor against her back. Varric means to check for the severity of her head wound when he asks her how many fingers he’s holding up, but the duality of it makes Hawke give a weak smile. The dwarf’s sallow complexion is enough to make her worry for her reputation as palest of the squad.

* * *

A month before Hawke turns twenty-eight, Aveline and Donnic marry. The ceremony is warm and cozy, despite the cool rain outside. Afterward, Hawke runs with Fenris to the door of the Hanged Man, where the wedding party is gathering for drinks and celebration. The two of them stand in the narrow alcove of the entrance, both of them soaked, smiling at one another. Hawke’s frames are made of ivory, a reflection of how far she’d come from Lowtown. But no matter the material, all eyeglasses are useless when covered in water droplets. She takes them off momentarily to wipe the rain away, but somehow they end up in Fenris’ hand instead, and his mouth is against hers. It is a secret as fragile as new wings – they both know of the shadow at his back. But it is too easy to be happy on this day, and for both of them – it is enough. 

* * *

Hawke is twenty-eight when she gets her first letter from Carver. She had written him three years ago, a week after her mother’s death, but hadn’t heard a reply. Much has changed since then. It is almost Wintermarch, and the city is already covered in a cloud of snow. It was not so pleasant when it got stuck in the fur of her armor, matting the collar and freezing in other places. When she finally manages to get back to the estate, she changes into worn breeches and a tunic, wrapping herself in an embroidered quilt. She curls up on the floor in the library, safe from the chill outside and cuts open the envelope. Carver’s penmanship is so familiar – he makes a few mistakes in the beginning, unsure of how to address her, settling for ‘Sister’ that she can imagine him saying in a stern voice. There are scribbles she cannot decipher but he is brief at first. When he speaks of their mother, a wound is reopened but – he is not angry, he is –

He wishes he had been there. But neither of them can afford to linger on what they’ve lost. And so the sadness is gone in an instant, his writing more hurried than before, as he speaks of grand adventures and heroism – The mass of fur behind Hawke’s back interrupts her momentarily, and she readjusts herself as her mabari scratches his ear and wags his tail. She laughs once, her glasses fogging from the heat in her face, but she does not cry. She will not cry for this again, and instead she smiles as her gaze falls to her younger brother’s practiced signature that finishes the letter, ‘Hawke’ standing proudly against the page.

* * *

Hawke is twenty-nine when she leaves the city she calls home. Aveline tries to calm the mayhem that follows the battle at the Gallows, but both of them know it is useless. Hawke must move on. Her estate is left in the care of Orana, who promises to visit Varania at Fenris’ request. The rest of Hawke’s group must divide, for fear of being hunted. Fenris holds out his hand to her as she crosses the threshold between dock and ship, Isabela quirking a smile at the two of them before glancing over the Champion’s shoulder. She turns to see Varric, who has a wistful look in his eye, and it is the first time that Hawke feels this loss so profoundly. He holds out a small box for her, and when she opens it, he speaks.

‘They’re Dragonbone.’ He says, as she runs her thumb along the Amell crest on each temple of the frames.

‘Figured you might need an extra pair, to keep an eye on you, since I can’t watch your back for a while.’

Her heart swells, sings, soars –

And she takes wing.

* * *

 

end.


End file.
